On the fourth day since she had arrived in Vale, Ruby stuck to the shadows in a popular, crowded market in downtown, aiming to stay out of sight of anyone who might draw attention to her. In the first twenty-four hours she has been—for lack of a better phrase—out of time, Ruby had dyed her hair dark brown, bought an entire new ensemble of clothes that had no trace of red anywhere on them, and she had found contact lenses that would hide the color of her irises.
Her eyes may not be the identifier they used to be (or rather, will be), but if Roman Torchwick so much as suspects that something is off, her entire scheme will go down the drain, he will kill her, he will die. Simple as that.
Her hair, now shoulder-length, was tucked into a loose bun at the back of her head.
When she reached the edge of the wall, she reached around to the rectangular case hanging over her back from a strap that crossed from Ruby's shoulder to her waistline. Carefully unzipping the top flap, she reached inside for the handle, memory directing her how to wrap her hand around the grip. Of course, the version she was used to hadn't been released for mass marketing yet, but without auto-focus, she would live. Her purposes were no longer aesthetically driven.
She removed the camera from the case and judged the distance between her and her target, judging the distance. Through the crowd, she hoped she could avoid suspicion, but Ruby spotted him, approximately one hundred meters away, surveying the options at a vendor in a food market.
Wrinkling her nose, Ruby wondered if he intended to pay. She selected the appropriate lens for the task, attaching it to the camera, and raised it in Roman's direction.
When she did manage to get a clear shot, she was only able to move so fast enough that most obstructions were clear, perhaps only a blur covering either his face, hands, or torso. Ruby scowled at the irony of the situation, that she was enabling him to go on living, but in the process erasing the timeline that created her. The principles that defined time travel were clearly explained to her, chief among them that there was a slim chance she would ever return to a timeline as she would remember them. All of the people she left behind, they would mourn their own erasure from the existence they remember, but Ruby would be entirely cast out in a design of her own making. That is if she doesn't disappear as a result of the paradox she will have created. If she did survive, she would never truly belong anywhere else again. She has already lost everything in a last-ditch effort to save everything, but she has so much more to lose if she fails. Everyone wanted Ruby to be fully aware of the complex nature of her almost impossible situation, to know that her chances of success were astronomically low, but that she was also the last chance of the world's survival.
Ruby kept snapping pictures as the opportunities presented themselves, not letting herself remember how none of them were able to come up with a failproof plan before she left. They had run out of time—they had to send her back before they truly had no time left in order to prepare for the worst.
As Ruby had expected, Roman pocketed two items from the table—from what Ruby can decipher, a water bottle and a protein bar—and walked away with his hands in his coat, no one stopping to look at the face hidden under the baseball cap. No wonder no one had been able to find him. Without his signature bowler hat, coat, and cane, he was unrecognizable.
The only reason Ruby had been able to find him was because she followed the plane, but she almost did a double-take when he didn't step off wearing his regular attire. He had stepped off the runway, brim of his hat pulled down over his eyes, and sauntered back to the financial district on foot. Ruby diligently kept her distance, and she was able to narrow down which apartment building he lived in and which floor he stayed on. By the time she had appeared on the floor herself, he was already gone.
In hindsight, she shouldn't have gone up in the first place. How many sopping wet, post-adolescent girls with silver eyes were in Vale at that time of night? Few enough that it would have drawn suspicion.
Ruby learned her lesson fast. When Roman walked away from the table, she didn't follow him. She knew enough that when he leaves the market, he goes directly back to his apartment, stays for anywhere from ten to thirty minutes, and emerges with a duffel bag that Ruby assumed would have carried his regular attire and his weapon.
With luck, she would predictably be able to narrow down a timeframe in which she could go inside his apartment, investigate, and leave undetected.
First, she would have to learn as many details as she could in the span of two months, including being able to reasonably predict whether or not he's paranoid enough to leave some sort of indicator that something had been tampered with or if he took photos of how certain items or arranged. Ruby knew that her assumption should have been yes, he does, but she figured that perhaps his ego would grant him some confidence that no one will have tailed them.
Today, she wouldn't watch him exit his apartment from the street to record his time. Instead, she would survey him from the window of a nearby restaurant.
Sitting at a window-side table in the diner across the street, she watched the entrance, dropping food back onto the plate when she wouldn't turn her attention away from the door. In the week she has been there watching him, he has consistently come out of his apartment at the exact same time. She had yet to discover where he went thereafter, but all throughout the week, he had consistently worked under a specific time frame. Worried that she may have missed him, she examined all of her notes again. Maybe there was something different about Thursdays, she thought. There could be a different plan, a different schedule. After all, it had only been four days. But the past four days have been clockwork. Where is he?
The sound of metal clattering against the polished tabletop jolted her attention to the other side of her table. Ruby's heart stopped.
Roman Torchwick stood, an apologetic expression on his face, as he began to express fraudulent condolences. "Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry, I didn't know where I was going." He leaned closer and spoke in undertone. "And, I guess, neither did you."
Ruby froze, unable to come up with the words for a response as he sat down at the other side of the table, still maintaining his character. "Please, let me buy your lunch, I didn't mean to scare you."
Not able to say anything else, Ruby only watched as he removed his hat and pushed his hair out of his face. He looked nothing like his mugshot without the makeup and the asymmetry.
His face fell into a cruel smirk as he snatched the notebook in front of Ruby's plate. He sighed, chuckling at the notes she had taken on his whereabouts. "Four days? I guess that means I was two days late." He looked up. "Oh, where are my manners?" Outstretching his hand, he smiled with a gracious affect. "My name is Roman," he said, clear as the glint of light she spotted in the knife just behind the edge of his cuff.
Ruby's head darted around the restaurant. Had no one heard him?
"It's going to look weird when you refuse me a handshake," Torchwick remarked, snapping her attention back to him. "I get the sense that you don't want anyone else intruding."
Dazed, Ruby held out her hand, which Roman took with vigor. He crushed her hand in his grip, causing her to yip in pain, but he releases her immediately.
"I'm impressed," he remarked, turning back to the notebook flipped open to the page where she had recorded all of his whereabouts on a piece of paper. "To your credit, I didn't even notice you until day three." He indicated on the paper, referring to the list of items he had stolen from the market the previous morning. "These are spot-on. Your surveillance tactics aren't bad for—what, nineteen?" He peered at her, intrigued.
Ruby swallowed. "Eighteen."
He scoffed. "That makes sense. You're perceptive, but you fail to realize that it's not a black-and-white game of cat and mouse, predator-prey, whatever analogy you use in your head."
You have no idea, asshole.
"More specifically, you failed to anticipate counter-surveillance. I have been watching you. Yesterday, after I realized I had seen that outfit twice that day, with that hair, I decided to see what you'd do. I thought I spooked you, but as it turns out, you were just sparse with your observations."
He reached across the table for Ruby's glass of water, tipping the glass back and drinking until only a centimeter of water was left at the bottom.
"Your place looked pretty nice," he said, nonchalant. "For a crash spot while you follow dangerous people around."
Ruby's eyes widened. He had been inside her apartment. He followed her back. He knew where she lived.
He smiled, wicked with delight as he watched the effect of his words on Ruby's face. He took a deep breath in contemplation. "Listen," he said. "I know the reason you didn't take this to the police," he raised the notebook, "is the same reason that I wouldn't take you to the police for stalking me: you're worried that the police will ID you and throw you into prison."
"What makes you so sure?" Ruby said. Scowling, conviction brewed in her mind.
"The rose has thorns," he muttered under his breath. "Well, for starters—" He pointed to the address scrawled at the top of the page. "—you've had this address for two days without my knowledge, and I haven't been incarcerated."
"So?"
"You don't want to be found."
Ruby was about to retort about how she was looking for something better, but she stopped herself. This was still a time when everyone still thought that Roman was the man in charge of the operation, if they suspected an operation at all. Ruby reserved her statement and kept her mouth closed, frustrated that Torchwick managed to put her at a loss for words.
"What do you want?" she growled.
He fell back against the back of his chair, sprawling his legs underneath the table. One of them kicked Ruby's feet, but he didn't move them. "Actually, I want to offer you a job."
Ruby frowned. "What?"
"A job," he iterated. "You know, how you get money around here?"
"What makes you think I don't have one?"
An eyebrow raised, he began listing items. "You clearly aren't professionally trained, your living style suggests that you either haven't been around a lot or that you just can't afford to put anything else in there, and you refuse to go to the government."
"Thanks, but I'll pass." Ruby pushed her chair away from the table and prepared to walk away, but Torchwick hooked one of his feet around her ankle.
"Of course, if you refuse, I can't let you leave with the information you have." He continued to flip through her notebook.
Ruby sat back down, back straight. She didn't have a choice. "What would you have me do?"
"Well, I'd like for you to take photos like these for me, with accompanying notes such as these. One condition."
Ruby raised her eyebrows in anticipation of a response.
"You report only to me. If I find out that you have been doing work for anyone else, I will find you and kill you myself. Understood?"
"Yes," Ruby said. "I understand."
"Good." He reached into his pocket and withdrew an archaic device with a long antenna, placing it in front of Ruby. "I will contact you on this phone instructing you how to deliver weekly reports and where to receive payment for them. Do not use this phone for any other purpose."
A cold feeling blanched Ruby's stomach—was this conversation being recorded on camera? She covered the phone under the palm of her hand and pulled it over the edge of the table, into her lap. Ruby felt as if she were covered in a thin film of slime, impenetrable and ever-present. Torchwick's blackmail disgusted her. "Who do you want to know about?"
"A student currently attending Beacon Academy. Her name is Ruby Rose."
